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Useful Information

The People Behind the B-52

Air Crew Members

Over the past fifty years, tens of thousands of pilots, navigators,
EWOs, and gunners have pulled alert with or flown the World’s Greatest
Warplane. Together their stories tell its raison d’etre, it’s
reason for being.

A few years ago it was said that the last B-52 crewmember had not
yet been born. Today that may or may not be true, but it’s probably
true that that last crewmember is still in grammar school.

Maintenance / Munitions

Crewmembers may be the ones who USE the airplane, but it’s
the maintainers who provide it.

There would have been no ‘big stick’ without
those who kept it ready. After all, pilots are just people who take
a good machine out and bring it back broken. And the airplane without
the weapons would be just a transport.

Why was it that the nukes
always had to be uploaded at three in the morning? AMMO!

Staff & Support

From the wing commander who went to Omaha to explain our screwups,
to the guys from current ops changing out the bags for the SIOP ‘Rev’ on
New Years Eve, they had the unenviable job of paperwork. We sometimes
forgot that most of ‘them’ used to be ‘us.’

And the list of those who kept us alive is long:

The weather and
base ops folks who briefed us

the inflight kitchens who had to
come up with something that would still be edible eighteen hours
(or thirty in today’s world) later

transportation’s buses where we hid
from the heat/cold during last minute maintenance

and the oxygen
masks, survival kits, and parachutes provided by—their name says
it all—life
support

Last, certainly not least, the cops! Where do you get guys
who’ll
accept responsibility for a nuclear loaded machine, day and night,
blazing heat or freezing cold, and challenge the wing commander if
he’s
not showing a valid line badge?

Every base needs its ‘housekeeping’ functions: hospital,
civil engineers, services, and so on. But B-52 operations frequently
lay unique and difficult requirements on these folks. Their stories are part
of the mosaic that is the history of the Stratofort.

But the bed rock of our support were our spouses. They kept the
world on an even keel while the rest of us—aircrew, maintainers,
support, everyone—fought our country’s wars for fifty-plus
years. They were, and are, an important part of the B-52 story!

Contractors / Engineers

The B-52 didn’t just happen. A team of engineers from Boeing
and the Air Force Bomber Development Branch (still in brown suits
then) at Wright Patterson AFB brought together several threads of emerging
technology to create The Bomber For the Ages!

The guys and gals (at least
one of the signatures on the original engineering drawings is Miss
Mary Lou Waite, described in a 1951 news article as a ‘girl engineer.’)
who took that idea, built it, tested it, and delivered it were probably
ultimately responsible for winning the Cold War.

Civilians / Enthusiasts

You don’t have to have had direct contact with the BUF to
appreciate its contribution to history.

There are aviation historians,
students of the Cold War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, the Balkan Wars
of the ‘90s,
and the current Middle Eastern wars who recognize and want to preserve
the history of America’s Big Stick.

And, of course, they’re
enthusiasts who just recognize greatness when they see it and want
to be part of its preservation.